Pages

Saturday, 12 November 2016

President Donald Trump was inevitable, if you knew a bit about people.

There's this misperception in parts of the world that we as humanity gradually step forward, towards one goal. I love to read world history, and right now, as always, I am working my way through the complete general history of some or other nation you might not have heard of. It's what I like to do, and it teaches a lot. Nations go on all sorts of journeys, and after all sorts of ideologies. Donald Trump is not some outlier. He is pretty much the political norm. We don't make big decisions, like who to vote for, with our logical minds, we make such decisions with the part of us that decides 90% of everything we do, it is an intuitive decision, a decision of the primitive brain, and Donald Trump is an expert at reading the zeitgeist of the primitive human mind. There is a reason people such as he are called populists, their views are very popular with the general population, even amongst those who abhor them.

Studies of subconscious bias confirm this. Even the most liberal, pro-black American white person tends to score badly on subconscious bias against black Americans, Hispanics, homosexuals, bisexuals, transsexuals and so forth. Despite mass open support for LGBT in America, those four letters make up half of America's homeless. Gays make less than straight Americans, and bisexuals do even worse. Subconsciously, Americans are more likely to associate blacks with violence, evil, crime and so forth. Granted, Black Americans are disproportionately part of America's poorer communities, and demographically, the poor are both more likely to commit crime and more likely to have crimes committed against them, but both activists and popular media ignore this in favour of a narrative that isn't quite sold to Americans. Black Lives Matter rioting and protests against the American national anthem haven't helped the black community's subconscious status as 'other', and this increases the likelihood of poverty and exclusion, which also makes crime and victimhood more likely, a cycle that continues, along with increased subconscious bias against African Americans amongst the white American majority. If anything, subconscious bias is at one of its worst levels in recent American history, and as we vote with our subconscious, media highlighting to voters that Trump was just like them, fearing immigrants, and other scapegoats, was pretty much all Trump needed. The fact media likes to treat White Americans as unimportant, redundant, and yesterday's news, was only likely to increase the likelihood of a vote for the Republican candidate.

Let's look at other media attacks on Trump: he kissed women without permission. In South Africa we call that sexual assault, but watch any American television series, and kissing another unexpectedly is portrayed as courageous and hardly anything wrong. I personally am rather proud of the number of women who have felt the need to secretly pinch my butt when I wasn't looking, but their actions would also technically be sexual assault. Trump's assertion that women would be prepared to consent to anything he did to them because he was a big star and rich and famous, is an assertion most Americans would agree with: they widely view their elite as being able to do as they please. The worst thing Trump could be accused of, therefore likely didn't really sway many voters, given that American culture tends to view such acts as ones of courage or humour. One need only listen to rap music, or watch American television to see just that. Trump represents the id of the American people, that which their national ego tends to hide from, but that which at its root, controls all their major decisions.

Research has shown that the only real way to combat extreme views is by presenting facts in a non-confrontational manner, and appealing to norms and standards that an opponent is likely to adhere to, in a non-emotive manner. Attacking those holding extreme views, calling them names, isolating them, and so forth, only strengthens their views. Trump caught onto this when he announced that he could murder in broad daylight and not lose support. An anti-Trump media had so buffered the American public against anything Trump could do, that he really had free reign, and could cleverly gain free publicity to tap into the national id, due to media's insistance that they had to denounce him. Really, all media did was reinforce an opinion of Trump the American public already had. Attacking him for being an uncouth man off the street, when he really is an elite billionaire, only got the incredibly wealthy tycoon more support from struggling men on the street and gave him grassroots appeal.

Media also refused to broach Hillary Clinton's weak points, and her policy and character failings. She never had to defend herself, save against Wikileaks, and as a result, voters were left with the impression that she was fragile, weak, and incompetent, protected by a friendly media and not really worthy of office, given her supporters' fear of the spotlight hitting her. When James Comey announced investigations against Hillary, and the Justice Department said they tried to stop him from telling the public, while Democrats threatened to punish him, the view that Hillary had something to hide became something that deeply sunk into the subconscious. Voters felt they just couldn't trust her. Trump, who they also deeply disliked, was the devil they felt they knew. What was there left to dig up, that media wouldn't have splattered on the front pages of every newspaper, after all, media had almost universally stated that they opposed Trump. What better way to make sure Trump won? Foolish media, but they were unperturbed.

Donald Trump will likely spend at least four years in the White House. Hopefully he will realise, as Reagan did, that he is woefully incompetent for the job, and appoint a wise team of experts to advise him, so that he does not drive America into the Titanic's field of icebergs. Regardless, no one should be surprised that Donald Trump won. Democracies throughout history are prone to electing sandmen just like him. It's the great terror, and great beauty of democracy: it is not the experts and wise guardians who elect a president. A president is not a pope. He is elected by the unwashed masses, and their choice is often messy, difficult and may seem undesirable. Yet, without that power to elect the uncomfortable into power, the unwashed masses would be at the mercy of the elite. This is the essence of democracy, and democracy this election has been.

They say love is blind, precisely because the intuitive, primitive mind controls whom we fall in love with. That same mind makes our most important decisions, it is what we vote with. I am not surprised that a man who is an expert at manipulating the zeitgeist, achieved election to the highest office in the United States of America. In hindsight, is anyone really that surprised? After all, would you have told pollsters you supported Trump, when for all you knew it was a prank by friend or foe, which could affect your career prospects? When media is as biased as in the Brexit and Trump elections, polls cannot be trusted, but underlying fears and primitive emotions are usually a steady guide as to a vote. They stood true as a north star to predict this last election, and will, in similar circumstances, in the future. Populism is called populism for a reason.